Today call me laid

Today call me laid but I’m referring to grammar; more specifically to the infinitives to lie and to lay. So if your Google search brought you here for something sexier, you’re in luck. There’s nothing hotter than the proper conjugation of verbs.

(Besides sentence diagramming or an explication of Moby Dick, am I right?)

Forgive me for taking the time to address the lie/lay debacle in a blog post. You’d probably rather read about my crock-pot chicken recipe or how my crippling fear of success leads me to sabotage myself with grammar-related musings.

(Wait, you wouldn’t? Well, okay! To my point.)

I’ve noticed a decent percentage of people misusing to lie (as in “to recline”) and to lay (as in “to place or set”). And since the English language is replete with homonyms and homophones, it’s no wonder there’s confusion among the masses.

Still. As a former English teacher, let me lay it out there:

You don’t tell a dog to lay on its bed; nor do you lay down for a nap or lay out in the sun. In the present tense, the proper conjugation for the infinitive to lie is lie or lies.

So.

I want my dog to stop humping me and lie down so I can lie on my bed to take a nap because it’s only 65 degrees outside which, for southern Californians, is so cold we will not lie in the sun. (Brrr!)

In the present and future tenses, no one lays down to rest.

I lie, you/we/they lie, he/she/it/lies down. Or out. Or yowsa, this stuff is hot!

Now. Here comes the past tense of to lie to mess with us.

Yesterday, my dog lay by the fire while I lay on the couch watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in which the ladies lay on the beach in Hawaii because life is hard.

Yes, indeed. The past tense conjugation of to lie is lay.

I lay, you lay, he/she/it/we/they lay.

Crap, right? Whose idiot idea was this? Maybe the guy who wrote Moby Dick, I don’t know. I do know if it sounds weird, it’s because so many people use it incorrectly.

But what aboutlaid? you ask. And I’m glad you did.

The verb to lay, as in “to place or set,” is unsettling because the present tense is lay and the past is laid.

So.

You can lay your winter coat right there (brrr!) and join me as I lay placemats on the table and fold this laundry I laid on the guest-room bed three days ago.

Did I just blow your mind?

It gets even sexier when we add participles into the mix. Not to mention conditionals and perfects and futures and ohmygodnowondernooneknowswhatherightwordis!

So rather than alienate you completely, I’ll close with a few more of the most common conjugations. Then you can send me specific questions and/or death threats via email, Facebook or twitter.

——-

To lay (as in to place – this verb requires a direct object being set somewhere):

Tomorrow, I will lay, you will lay, he/she/it/they/we will lay our heads on Ryan Gosling’s chest. (When is a bad time, really?)

The key is the direct object being laid, or placed. And the object is our heads. And the heads are lucky.

——-

To lie (as in recline – on a bed or a beach towel or the backseat of a car):

We addressed present and past already so let’s skip to the future.

I will lie down on the bed. You will lie, he/she/it will lie down. We all will lie down. Why? Because we’re exhausted by this post.

I/you/he/she/it we are lying down. I/you/he/she/it were lying down. Still with me, yes? Also still exhausted.

Now it gets tricky:

I have lain in the sun for two hours, so I am burned. By noon tomorrow, you still will have lain in the sun less than the cast of Jersey Shore. But he/she/it/they have lain together so many times on that show no one remembers who’s gotten laid by whom.

I know. Completely crazy, right? I mean the verbs. Not the cast of Jersey Shore. They’re awesome. Obviously.

Brilliant! Grammar princesses unite! How about the difference between subjective and nominative case next? It’s like fingernails on a blackboard when I hear someone say, “…this is for he and I,” yet more people seem to have missed that particular grammar lesson than have remembered it. What’s wrong with [him and] me?!

I love this! Would you be able to dedicate some blog time to the other serious grammar deficiencies such as people always saying “for ____ and I” rather than “for _____ and me” (thank you Jeanie!), and also when in the world did the country completely give up on learning the correct use of an apostrophe, especially when adding an “s” to anything? Apostrophes almost never form plurals! Thanks! Feels so good to get that off of my chest.

See, this is why I WAS awake in math … it’s so much easier than this! And by your logic, shouldn’t the title of this post be “Today call me … lain?” What are you trying to say with it! I’m so confused!

This has to be my favorite grammar post ever. And now I’m wondering if that last sentence grammatically valid because grammar is not my strongest attribute.

I am curious if the common kid’s pray “Now I lay me down to sleep…” is wrong. I’m trying to justify it in my mind because she is laying her head on the pillow to sleep… Not lying down… F it never mind.

You had me at the title. Giggled my way all the way through. You DO make grammar sexy!
Maybe you can have a crack at lose and loose because no matter how many people write about it, it’s still out there – the blatant misuse.

I loathe nonsensical rules, unless I’m making them up or unless they involve eating ice cream on the sixth day of the ninth month IF there’s a full moon.

Also, funny story (she says), I was kicked out of high school English for the entire year. I had to sit in the library and do independent study which consisted of me reading whatever I felt like (which was anything BUT The Scarlett Letter). I think I got a B. Then, the fates frowned upon my same English teacher, who had me for Senior English the next year.

I made it up to him by excelling in Academic Decathalon, which is ironic since I no longer remember how to spell “decathalon”, and he was the coach, so despite my big mouth and my inability to do any of the assignments, he gave me a B minus. I would say that Extra Curricular Activities saved my academic career, but it sounds rather dirty and the very idea of something dirty with my high school English teacher makes me want to throw up again.

In summary, I hate you for this. Enjoy my wonton use of English/Grammar.

Can you see me through the computer? I need to go lie down because I don’t think I’ve ever swooned more over a post. Correct grammar makes me happy; simple, complete examples of correct grammar make me giddy.

I am seriously book marking (wait-is that an actual verb?) this post to save to refer to-I always hesitate when writing posts where I want to use the word lay/lie, and end up using place/recline instead so I don’t embarrass myself…thanks for the valuable (and well written, as always) post!

I just read the back and forth between you and Dad. Bah! I heart my family! Mom and Dad were SO right to correct (read: hound) is about our grammar when we were young. At least that’s what I keep telling myself as I correct (read: harrass) my boys about theirs.

And for good measure, we get a lot of mileage out of the absurdity of “like”…among ALL adolescents, and sadly, many adults.

Jordan: “Winter Formal is going to be at this, like, warehouse.”
Me: “Is it going to be at a warehouse or a like warehouse?”

I am going to bookmark this for a referral in the future. I wish you taught English at my high school because the kids would love your lessons – I mean Jersey Shore in a grammar lesson? They would go nutty.

I used to be an 8th grade English teacher and yeah, mind somewhat blown. But, like everything else I intend to blame the complete dumbing down of my brain on my children. And, I’m happy to have people like you remind me of this important type stuff. Although now I will probably be fretting all night about whether or not I conjugated said verb correctly in previous posts! And, if this comment makes me look like a buffoon.

Renée at Teachers and Twits is definitely right. This is the best blog of the moth. As I slog through my Latin text trying to reteach myself all the Latin I’ve forgotten, I now realize there is a whole bunch of English that I’ve forgotten as well. Well done. And thank you.

Any teacher who uses dog humping as a example in their lesson has my attention. If you ever need blog fodder, mine is a wonderful resource of insane grammar mistakes. In my defense, a lot of them are due to rubbish typing too 🙂
Now I must go lie down.

Hate you? Uh, no. I rather love you now. “Lie” with all its variations and tenses, makes me crazy. I’m 58 now and I used to be spot-on with the proper use of everything. Somehow, over the years, I have lost it. A lot of it. And most certainly the proper use of “lie”. I have grammargirl.com on bookmark because of my affliction, but your little class is so much sexier. I am copying this whole post and printing it out and LAYING it on my desk for constant reference. You rock girlie. Thank you. I get the whole your/you’re and there/their/they’re stuff, but this “lie” stuff literally makes me want to LIE down and give up on writing completely.
Ok….maybe not. But you just added yourself to my list of reference materials, and I will be writing much better because of you. YEAH Julie!!!
And thanks!

So I love this! But I have to say I will be terribly disappointed if you move on to Moby Dick though. If you stay on this path, you may get a whole new series of readers who were googling for something quite different…

How did I miss this in its inception? I consider myself a fairly decent writer and grammarian, but I will admit to having major trouble with lie/lay/laid. I stumbled a post not too long ago that LAID it all on the line in a way that as almost, but not quite, as entertaining as this. So, I’m stumbling this too, and will no doubt refer back to it often as I’m LYING on my couch writing blog posts.

Oy Julie! I always get this wrong. ALWAYS! But I guess you are becoming quite well acquainted with my poor grammar skills! (In fact in my self-absorbed head I immediately assumed that it was my grammar -or lack there of- that inspired this post in the first place.) But I digress… I will try to do better. In the meantime you take Ryan Gossling and I’ll take Bradley Cooper and we’ll lay our heads on their chests and not give a crap about grammar at all! 🙂

This makes me happy. You know it does. Almost as happy as laying my head on Ryan Gosling’s chest (But not nearly as happy as lying with Ryan, but please don’t tell Mark I said that. It’s our little secret, here on the internet.)